No objection. I didn’t say anything about not needing to have more discussion and focus on migrant trawler. All I said is that there’s a way better places to make the comment. This is still, ostensibly, a blog about cars and transportation - and a frank discussion about risk takers and submersible design and how they…

Can you point me to where I said we shouldn’t have a discussion about Trawler?

Did I say it wasn’t? Holy shit, why is everyone so God-damn anxious to be infuriated on the internet. At a minimum try not to be blatantly disingenuous with your insults.  

At least this subject has to do with transportation and vehicles.  If you want to air this particular grievance, check out the main article about two billionaires trying to arrange a cage match.

Well, and probably inform the families first.

Whenever I say stuff like this it’s just in one ear and out the other. But - seriously - a bunch of predominantly 1st world people, sitting at desks or on phones, opining about cars and trucks and boats and video games are privileged as all hell compared to the rest of the world. And from a ‘qualityof life’ perspective…

Wait. you think that the government is ‘obligated’ to save people if they get in trouble? Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. The simple fact is that before sending in any rescue team hard decisions are made about the chance of success, the risk to the rescue team, and the costs to the government.  Any…

You seem to be missing my point - but that’s fine. I don’t think there’s any way I can say it any clearer. But I will ad this - whenever someone does something dangerous they always take the risk that they won’t be rescued. That the government will deem an attempt too risky, too impractical, or too expensive given the…

This is exactly it. The Titanic story has all the hall marks of a dramatic movie in real life - and people are watching it for that reason. It involves one of the best known wrecks of all time, technology, hubris being confronted by nature, impending tragedy and even a damn ‘clock ticking down to a media imposed…

I don’t think there’s a meaningful difference there. The logic I’m persuaded by is that the threat of having to pay means that people will be more likely to try and ‘self rescue’ - and that almost invariably makes the inevitable rescue harder and riskier - for both the people being rescued and the rescuers as well as…

It’s this kind of hubris that bothers me the most. It’s such disrespect for the power of the ocean. Of nature. The second you don’t respect the ocean, it can kill you. Hell, it’ll do that even if you respect it’s power.

The best color, apparently, for visibility in the ocean is hot pink. Orange isn’t bad. But hot pink is the ticket.

Honestly - if they’re still underwater, I hope you’re right. A catastrophic failure would be the most compassionate outcome. The pressure is so great that if that sub failed, structurally, they wouldn’t have even known it. Suffocating to death in the pitch black as batteries fail would be truly terrifying. And I…

Everything I’ve read and heard is that charging people for being rescued is, across the board, a bad idea. This is a cost we should just be willing to accept. As soon as you implement a ‘pay for it’ policy, people are reluctant to actually ask for help - and that leads to more complicated rescues, increased risk to…

Known free speech absolutist bans words that make him uncomfortable.

I think about these kinds of issues a lot. In the ‘real world’ one of the things I like to do is volunteer with our local marine archaeology society. They work, in close concert with the government, to catalogue, monitor and document ship wrecks. This means I dive wrecks pretty frequently. Many of them ran around near…

The ocean is a noisy place. But I’d imagine that if this were people signaling for rescue the bangs would be obviously intentional - repetitious and timed out... even an SOS. And if it were shifting metal on the Titanic itself, it would be random and chaotic.

A lot of times hikers go off on their own for backcountry camping or hiking. Knowingly taking trails that aren’t ‘official’ trails, regulated trails, or monitored areas of the country. I’m not sure that the sub being regulated or not matters much when considering the overall policy of charging people for rescue.

yeah - that’s true. I do a lot of work with SAR folks, and we chat quite a bit. Whenever the subject of ‘paying for rescue’ comes up, the experienced guys are almost always of one mind - it’s a bad idea. No matter how stupid the person was. As soon as you tell people they need to pay to get rescued, they invariably…

I suppose it depends. I recall reading (it may have even been in Bob Ballard’s book about exploring the Titanic) that at those depths in particular, if there’s a hull rupture the sudden implosive force would happen so quickly you wouldn’t even have time to recognize what occurred.